


Shelter from the Storm

by orphan_account



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mizuki picks up an annoying stray kitten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter from the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> For [Button!!!!](http://www.buddens.tumblr.com) Happy birthday!!

The sound of raindrops hitting leather clothing fills Mizuki’s ears as he ducks under a storefront eave, sheltering a paper bag under his jacket. He sighs and looks out at the grey sky. He doesn’t mind the rain usually—he’d just rather be watching it from inside a warm room than getting wet in it.

“At least it looks like it’ll stop soon,” he says to himself. The streets are almost abandoned, with only a handful of people, either strolling under umbrellas or dashing through the rain to reach safety. He squats down on his haunches and pulls open the paper bag to bite into a newly bought apple. Chewing thoughtfully, he mentally goes over his checklist. He’s just bought dinner, plus ordered new grips for his tattoo shop, and got cleaning supplies yesterday which just leaves—

_Fwummp !!!_

With a slight splash mixed with a dull thump, a large white sack falls into a puddle right in front of Mizuki.

Not a sack—a man in a big white coat.

…and a gasmask?

“Hey!” The paper sack on his lap falls off his lap and apples roll out onto the cement as Mizuki steps back into the rain.

The man in the white coat, lying spread-legged on the ground, stands up quicker than Mizuki reaches his side and begins gesturing wildly.

“That’s mean, so mean,” he says, directing his words to the sky. A crow caws at the man in reply. The man whines again and then starts to slap at his coat, trying to get it clean.

He’d had the misfortune of landing mostly in a mud puddle, his white coat and gloves taking most of the damage. The gasmask has a splash of mud across one eye.

The stranger reaches into his pockets and shifts around, pulling out a handkerchief to clean himself, but he only succeeds in smearing it further. Still rubbing at his mask, he moves to face Mizuki.

“Hello, I’m Clear.”

“Mizuki,” he replies, unsure if the man is saying his name or something else entirely, “did you…did you fall off the roof?”

The stranger—Clear—nods, “Yes. I saw some birds sitting on the rooftop and thought they might need shelter from the rain, so I sat next to them with my umbrella but suddenly there were too many and they started fighting and I tried to shoo them but then they started flapping very quickly … and then I fell.”

Mizuki puffs out a laugh. The rain slows to a drizzle and Mizuki decides despite his off the charts level of weirdness, this guy doesn’t seem like a threat.

“You should head home and wash up or you’re gonna be real itchy soon,” he says, looking over at his fallen apples and sighing. He picks a nearby one up, confirms they’re too bruised to be worth salvaging and tosses it into a garbage bin. He hears clapping from behind him and sees Clear enthusiastically applauding.

“Nice shot!” he says cheerfully.

“Hm, thanks...? The rain pretty much stopped so I’ll head home too, bye,” Mizuki turns his back to Clear and begins to walk.

“Mizuuuuki-san!” Mizuki turns and manages to pull up his hands fast enough to catch the object thrown at him.

Clear waves at him. “That apple isn’t as bruised as the others. I’ll head home to Kitachiku now then, bye!”

“Wait—Kitachiku—that’s really far,” Mizuki says without meaning to, “did you walk all the way from the northern district to here?”

“Yes, I took the rooftops, but they’ll be slippery now so I suppose I’ll walk.”

_The rooftops, he says. There’s something definitely strange about this guy,_ Mizuki thinks.

He opens his mouth to wish him good luck on his walk. “Well, I don’t live too far, if you want you can clean up there.” _Holy shit, I can’t control my own mouth._

“Really?” Clear asks. Mizuki imagines that the man is looking at him thoughtfully, but it’s impossible to tell with his stupid gasmask on.

Thinking it’d be wrong of him to go back on something he’s said—even on ridiculous impulse—he nods.

“Why not?” he grins winningly.  
—  
“Here it is, welcome to my humble abode and all that,” he strips off his wet jacket and tosses it on the worn leather couch in his living room.

Clear steps into Mizuki’s house behind him, politely saying, “Pardon the intrusion” and then moving his head side to side to survey the living room. Well-used and mismatched furniture takes up much of the area, with a large TV taking up the rest of the space. The single table in front of his couch is covered beer bottles with an ashtray overflowing with cigarettes (not his), and the TV remote sits precariously on top of a beer can. A lonely sock sits on top of the TV and Mizuki is only half sure that it belongs to him

“It’s messy,” is Clear’s declaration.

“It’s a bachelor pad, what do you expect?” Mizuki gruffs. In his opinion, his house should be considered well lived in rather than dirty. He’d specifically chosen to live in a house rather than renting a room somewhere just so he could have room for any member of his team who need a space to crash for the night. He likes the thought of being a harbor for his team, but he passed off any questions about he got about it as simply wanting more living space.

He walks to the TV and pushes the sock over behind it, thinking _goodbye sock_ and feeling Clear’s silent judgment on his back.

“You can use the shower, the bathroom is over there,” he gestures, “just toss your clothes outside and I’ll wash them real quick.”

“Thank you for your kindness, Mizuki-san,” says Clear, dripping slightly on his carpet on his way to the bathroom. “I’ll be using your shower then!” he chirps as he closes the door behind him.

“Okay,” Mizuki sighs to himself. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing anymore. He already decided Clear wasn’t dangerous, but that just makes him feel like he’s picked up a homeless kitten nobody wanted. Seemingly harmless things like that always lead to trouble. He sighs again, more for effect this time, and paces around the living room before heading to his room to change out of his damp clothes.

When he returns, he begins pacing again, halfheartedly throws some trash away before realizing the garbage can is full and he doesn’t have the energy to empty it and get a new bag. He looks to see a pile of once white clothes in front of the closed bathroom door and moves to deal with them before bringing a set of his own clothes for Clear to wear.

He stops outside the door, raises a loose fist to knock, then stops.

He can hear singing. Clear’s voice is soft so he can’t make out the words, but it seems like he’s singing a lullaby, lilting and sweet. Mizuki holds still listening to him, the sounds of his breathing and the running shower fading into the background as Clear’s song echoes in the tiled bathroom. He spends a few silent minutes not moving at all, before coming back to himself and blinking quickly.

He clears his throat and the singing stops. “I just put your clothes in the washer, so I’ll loan you some of mine for now,” Mizuki says through the door, “open up and take them.”  
The door opens slightly and a giant glass eye looks at him through the crack. Mizuki nearly jumps out of his skin before realizing that it’s Clear, who’s still wearing his gasmask.

“You’re wearing your mask in the shower!?” he asks incredulously.

“Thank you for the clothes,” Clear says, ignoring his question.

Clear shuts the door practically in his face, and Mizuki sighs and rubs his temples. Sometimes there are regrettable decisions and sometimes there are stupid decisions, and this seems to be a fine mix of both.

While he considers ramming his head against the wall, he hears Clear begin to sing again and once again Mizuki unwillingly finds himself enthralled by the melody.

He feels himself begin to doze as he listens to Clear’s voice. Mizuki’s gotten used to nights staring at the dark corners of his ceiling, his mind echoing with words that he’s either heard or completely imagined. Suffice to say, none of them are complimentary. So instead, he learns that sleeping doesn’t necessarily mean resting, and made it a habit to let his coffee pot run all day. But now, hearing the soothing melody drifting from the slightly ajar door, he begins to feel a sense of peace.

Listening to Clear’s voice now, though, makes some of the tension in his shoulders melt and his forehead relax. He feels his knees gives out in exhaustion and slowly sinks to the ground. He feels himself falling into sleep without meaning to. He shakes himself awake twice, willing himself to get off the floor in front of the bathroom, because how bad would that look? But Clear’s voice, muffled by the door and possibly a rubber gasmask is impossibly sweet and lulls his tired mind.

He doesn’t win against his exhaustion.  
—

When he comes to, his neck aches from the strange angle, but he feels more rested than he has in a long while. He rubs at his face and then sniffs. The smell…?

He smells the sharp smell of cleaning products.

“Good morning, Mizuki-san!” he hears from above him. He looks up from his seat on the ground to see Clear, still in his gasmask and wearing his own shirt and pants. He must have finished washing them—along with everything else.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Just three hours.”

A spike of panic shoots up Mizuki’s spine as he realizes this total stranger had a run of his house for three hours. He couldn’t have been cleaning the whole time, which means he must have had time to shift around Mizuki’s possessions. He doesn’t own anything that valuable but there are sentimental items he wouldn’t trust anyone with. “Er, what did you do that whole time?”

“It was messy, so I cleaned up to thank you for letting me use your shower and for your clothes. I also took the liberty of making dinner.”

“You made dinner?”

“Yup! The selection in the fridge was lacking so I went out and bought some more food. Your fridge is well stocked now, so please use it well.” Clear walks to the couch and picks up his coat. “Well, I’m off now Mizuki-san, I’m very grateful for your hospitality.”

While Mizuki stands, still frozen in shock, Clear hums his way towards the door.

“Goodbye, Mizuki-san, good luck with your team and your shop tomorrow!”

“Hey,” Mizuki startles, “how do you know about that?”

“I heard of you from Master and Koujaku-san. I wouldn’t just go to the house of a total stranger, you know! That’s dangerous,” Clear huffs inside his mask.

“They’ve never talked about you.”

“Really? Booo,” Clear, seeming distressed, sinks his shoulders dramatically, “I thought we were friends, but they’ve never mentioned me?”

Mizuki feels vaguely responsible for making Clear cry, although he wonders at how a grown man can cry so easily, “Well, we usually talk about other stuff anyway. Since you know where my shop is, why don’t you stop by someday?”

“Really?” Clear perks up.

“Sure.”

“Yay! I’ll be sure to take you up on that. Well, I’m off, goodbye!”

Mizuki closes the door behind him.

“ _What the hell?_ ”  
—  
After that, the weird gasmask wearing man begins to stop by his bar regularly, and Mizuki becomes accustomed to listening to Clear chattering inanities at him as he wipes down the tables in the bar. Sometimes he even allows Clear in the back tattoo shop, and that ends as a toss-up with Clear continuing to chatter, swinging his feet childishly on a borrowed stool, or with Clear leaning forward in silent concentration as Mizuki spreads ink on his customer’s skin.

Surprisingly, no one seems to mind Clear much after the initial shock at his appearance and demeanor. Most of his team warm up to Clear and a corner of his bar begins to be reserved for raucous laughter and singing with Clear in the center of it all. Clear repays everyone’s kindness in return, remembering the slightest details about them and congratulating so-and-so on their new baby and expressing sincere condolences to such-and-such for their father passing.

In those times, Mizuki quietly smiles to himself and realizes he was right in thinking that he’d picked up an annoying kitten that day in the rain. He’s fond of Clear, and his strangeness, his mask, and his endless pockets even. Sometimes the not so little kitten even follows him home and busies himself cleaning and cooking for Mizuki, even with Mizuki protesting that they’re friends and Clear should sit down and relax occasionally. Clear maintains that he’s simply repaying Mizuki’s kindheartedness towards him and he doesn’t mind because he likes to clean. He insists enough that Mizuki lets him do as he likes and settles back on his couch with a beer instead, like now.

Clear flits around his house and really, it’s spotless already, but Clear continues to run dust cloths over everything until not a speck shows before being satisfied enough to move onto the next chore.

Mizuki wonders if Clear gets hot wearing his gasmask while working, but lets the thought leave him easily. He’s only asked about it once and Clear’s reaction was to pull it off with a “ta-da!!!” to reveal another mask inside. He earned a kick from Mizuki for that, but Mizuki let it go, knowing that there were plenty good reasons to hide parts of yourself from the world. When he had thoughts like that, he usually ended up touching the bandages around his throat, his fingers brushing against where cloth met skin.  
He toys with his bandages until Clear pulls him out of his reverie by clinking a plate of cut peaches in front of him.

“Mizuki-san, I found some peaches in your fridge so I cut them up for you,” Clear says, sitting down on the couch beside him. He waits with his hands in his lap until Mizuki leans forward and picks one up to eat.

“They’re good, thanks.”

“Are they? I’m glad,” Clear asks.

Mizuki looks over at Clear who has his head tilted to the side. Mizuki closes his eyes, “Go.” He silently counts to ten before opening them again and sees Clear’s gasmask moving up and down as he chews.

“Ah, they are!”

Mizuki chortles, “I have the best tastes in everything, thought you knew.”

“Hmm, you must like fruit a lot!” Clear says to him instead of replying.

“Huh, why’s that?” he lifts an eyebrow at Clear.

“Well, you’re always eating oranges or apples or peaches and you even have cherry earrings!”

Mizuki sputters, “They’re not cherries, they’re normal red beads.”

“Hmmm? Really?” Clear shifts close enough to Mizuki that he feels Clear’s breath on his cheek. Clear reaches out and holds Mizuki’s pierced ear with a gloved hand. “Ooooh—I see now.”

“Hey—hey, don’t just grab people like that,” Mizuki says, bristling at the sudden contact. “It must be hard looking through that gasmask of yours all the time anyway, so they probably look like cherries, but they’re not. Maybe if you took it off, it’d be more obvious.”

Clear sits still and Mizuki mentally throws himself off a cliff for his stupidity.

“My grandfather told me never to take it off,” Clear says quietly. His voice, always slightly muffled by the mask is difficult to hear.  
“Clear, it’s fine, you don’t have—”

Clear cuts him off, “You’ve have given me something very precious. Your team and your bar and your house have become very important to me, like a home. Even though you’ve given me so much, I hide my face for you as if I don’t trust you, but in truth I am scared,” he pauses, trying to compose himself and his voice cracks, “I am scared that you or my new friends won’t accept me because of the way that I look. I don’t want to be told to leave when you all mean so much to me.”

Mizuki, who’s always there to lend an ear to others—he knows when to nod his head sympathetically, when to push over another drink, and when to grin and crack a joke—listens to Clear speak, his eyebrows knitting together and his jaw clenching. He doesn’t know what to say to something like this.  


“Clear… you don’t have to know, you know?”

“I want to! I've been thinking about it a lot. I want to trust you and the others so much and I feel as if I am in the wrong,” Clear says, shifting his head so that the eyes of the mask look at the wall behind Mizuki instead of at him. Mizuki can hear Clear making soft sobbing sounds.

“Hey, stop,” Mizuki says, grabbing the filter on the side of Clear’s mask playfully. He shakes Clear’s head side to side with it, and then gets serious again, “Clear, none of Dry Juice would abandon you just because of your face. You could look like two asscheeks taped together and we’d all be fine with it, probably.”

Clear stops sniffling to huff, offended, “That’s a weird thing to say, Mizuki-san, you’re weird!”

“I don’t wanna hear that from you,” Mizuki curls his lip at the thought.

Clears fidgets with his hands in his lap, and the silence stretches into just becoming awkward when Mizuki continues, “So, yeah, you don’t have to show your face if you don’t want to, but if you do, it wouldn’t make a difference in how anyone treats you. I’ll take care of it if anyone does.”

“I do want to show my face, but it’s just—ah, well…I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?” Clear points to Mizuki’s throat.

Mizuki sputters and realizes that no matter how much he tells himself that he’s got Clear figured out, he’ll never learn to expect what comes out of the other man’s mouth. And when the mood had been so heavy just a moment ago.

“Where did you hear that?”

“I overheard the neighbor kids say something like that to each other, did I say it wrong?”

“That’s—well, it doesn’t matter,” Mizuki sighs, “Alright, go.”

Mizuki touches his bandages as is his habit, but then pulls on the metal clip holding the bandages together, loosening them and Clear matches his movements with the clips on his mask.

The scars where the morphine tattoo used to be shine slightly on his neck. He still hadn’t gotten through all of the removal sessions, the remover citing his dark skin and the delicate area as reasons that it’d take longer for the scars to completely heal. He’d considered just covering it up with another tattoo at first, but he wasn’t sure how to go on living with knowing that thing would still be under it. He wanted it burned off of him completely.

Mizuki looks at Clear, who has his gasmask off but still positioned in front of his face.

“Mizuki-san, those look like they really hurt.” Mizuki blinks at the sound of Clear’s voice, hearing it unmuffled for the first time. He feels an edge of anxiety in his throat.

“It’s fine, it’s just scarring from the laser removal. It doesn’t hurt to do it,” Mizuki lies. In truth, it hurt more than getting a tattoo in the first place, but Mizuki doesn’t mind the pain. It just means that he’s alive and he’s still here to make his mark in the world. “Hey,” he says, “now it’s your turn. I showed you mine, now you have to show me yours, remember?”

“Ok-ay,” Clear says, hesitant. He pulls the mask aside.

“What the hell, you’re totally normal!” Mizuki shouts.

“Huh, really?”

And he is, in a way.

His skin is almost pure white, only having a flush of color because of his even lighter hair. The fluffy mess on his head that Mizuki made a habit of ruffling affectionately covers his face in messy bangs and the corners of Clear’s pink eyes crinkle in concern as he looks straight at Mizuki. There are two little black moles under his bottom lip.

As Mizuki takes in Clear’s appearance, Clear’s lips begin to tremble and little tear droplets begin to form in the corners of Clear’s eyes. He chokes slightly as he speaks, “Do I really look normal?”

“Yeah, you do,” Mizuki sighs, letting out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

“Do I look the same as you?”

“Huh?” Mizuki says, taken slightly aback, “Well no, your coloring is different than mine, but you look just look like a normal guy.”

“I’m glad!” Clear begins to cry in earnest, and tackles Mizuki, pulling him into a hug.

“H-hey! Don’t be that rough. Damn, you’re stronger than you look,” Mizuki says, his pretend offense dying under his laughter.

Clear grins at him and Mizuki feels his heart stutter at the sight.

“Hey, Mizuki-san, we match,” Clear points to the tears on his face and then to the one tattooed on Mizuki’s.

Mizuki chuckles quietly, “Yeah, I guess we do.”


End file.
